‘Just a moment

‘Just a moment, Charles, there’s something I’ve got to explain. My mother has given orders that no drinks are to be left in any of the rooms. You’ll understand why. If you want anything, ring and ask Wilcox - only better wait until you’re alone. I’m sorry, but there it is.’
‘Is that necessary?’

‘I gather very necessary. You may or may not have heard, Sebastian had another outbreak as soon as he got back to England. He was lost over Christmas. Mr Samgrass only found him yesterday evening.’
‘I guessed something of the kind had happened. Are you sure this is the best way of dealing with it?’
‘It’s my mother’s way. Will you have a cocktail, now that he’s gone upstairs?’
‘It would choke me.’
I was always given the room I had on my first visit; it was next to Sebastian’s, and we shared what had once been a dressing-room and had been changed to a bathroom twenty years back by the substitution for the bed, of a deep, copper, mahogany-framed bath, that was filled by pulling a brass lever heavy as a piece of marine engineering; the rest of the room remained unchanged; a coal fire always burned there in winter. I often think of that bathroom - the water colours dimmed by steam and the huge towel warming on the back of the chintz armchair - and contrast it with the uniform, clinical, little chambers, glittering with chromium-plate and looking-glass, which pass for luxury in the modern world.
I lay in the bath and then dried slowly by the fire, thinking all the time of my friend’s black home-coming. Then I put on my dressing gown and went to Sebastian’s room, entering, as I always did, without knocking. He was sitting by his fire half-dressed, and he started angrily when he heard me and put down a tooth glass.
‘Oh, it’s you. You gave me a fright.’
‘So you got a drink,’ I said.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘For Christ’s sake,’ I said, ‘you don’t have to pretend with me! ‘You might offer me some.’
‘It’s just something I had in my flask. I’ve finished it now.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing. A lot. I’ll tell you some time.’
I dressed and called in for Sebastian, but found him still sitting as I had left him, half-dressed over his fire.
Julia was alone in the drawing-room.
‘Well,’ I asked, ‘what’s going on?’
‘Oh, just another boring family potin. Sebastian got tight again, so we’ve all got to keep an eye on him. It’s too tedious.’
‘It’s pretty boring for him, too.’
‘Well, it’s his fault. Why can t he behave like anyone else? Talking of keeping an eye on people) what about Mr Samgrass? Charles, do you notice anything at all fishy about that man?’
‘Very fishy. Do you think your mother saw it?’
‘Mummy only sees what suits her. She can’t have the whole household under surveillance. I’m causing anxiety, too, you know.’
‘I didn’t know’ I said, adding humbly, ‘I’ve only just come from Paris.’ so as to avoid giving the impression that any trouble she might be in was not widely notorious.
It was an evening of peculiar gloom. We dined in the Painted Parlour. Sebastian was late, and so painfully excited were we that I think it was in all our minds that he would make some sort of low-comedy entrance, reeling and hiccuping. When he came it was, of course, with perfect propriety; he apologized, sat in the empty place, and allowed Mr Samgrass to resume his monologue, uninterrupted and, it seemed, unheard. Druses, patriarchs, icons, bed-bugs, Romanesque remains, curious dishes of goat and sheeps’